2022 Update

Hello readers.

It's been a while and my blog is back. :)

For those of you who wanted to read my reviews. I would like to apologize for the sudden disappearance of my blog for the past year or so. Some stuff happened and blogging had to take a back seat.

But to randomly quote Dom Mazzetti: "Here I am, right around the holiday season. Like a dad that went out for cigarettes and just kind of crept back in."

Almost 2 years have passed since the latest post on this blog and naturally, my priorities have deviated greatly from where I left off. I'm currently about 5 weeks into my final semester before graduation (yes, Y4S2 that's how fast time flies haha) and in the midst of FYP, amongst many other things.

Looking back, there seems to be a lot that I could write about from where I last left off. Things such as course reviews, my internship and holidays to simply just how life has been since the pandemic.

I think it is too much to write in one go, so I intend to adopt a more carefree and unstructured way to document everything I have done since then. In other words, I will be doing away with the usual structure from the previous posts. This is also due to my memory of the courses that I've taken being hazy at this point of time which means that adopting the structure would not bring much value to juniors who are curious about the prospective courses.

That said, do look forward to some interesting ideas I have for my subsequent posts:

    Memorable UEs including NIE Piano Ensemble (a graded course)

    My Y3S2 internship at Keysight Technologies

    My current Y4S2 FYP and what I've been up to since 2020?

    More course reviews! (from more recent semesters)

    CCAs and Concerts in a Pandemic (Y4 Eleganza after 2 postponements since Y2!)

    Looking Ahead: What I intend to do and where I intend to go?

I may or may not write about all of them due to my schedule and there is no scheduled order of topics, but I hope that whatever stories I do end up writing may pique the interest of my juniors and blog readers.

As usual, do leave comments if you have any questions and I will do my best to reply them ASAP. :)

Have a good day and stay safe. :)

Course Review NTU EEE - EEE Y2S1 AY19/20

[UPDATE: this is an incomplete entry from Y2S1 published for memories' sake. At the time of this publication aka Feb 2022, I have effectively forgotten what I wanted to write here, so I'll be leaving this post as is.]

Hello to all my readers! I hope everyone is doing well. :) This is my course review for Y2S1 AY19/20. I have tried my best to remember as much as I could but please forgive me if I forgot anything. Some parts will be left as ? if I really don't remember.

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Y2S1: August 2019 - Nov 2019

General comments on what I did well, what I could have improved on etc will be included at the end of the post. I will also update the final results when they are out.

Each course is broken up into the following parts:

1. Marks and assessment component of the course

2. Course mechanics

3. Short Intro

4. Easy parts

5. Difficult parts

6. Exams/ final paper

7. Tips to do well

8. Overview/ my personal (MIGHT BE BIASED) comments

[CONFIRMED] YEAR 2 SEMESTER 1 (20AU):

MAJ-CORE EE2001 CIRCUIT ANALYSIS (4AU), GRADED

MAJ-CORE: EE2004 DIGITAL ELECTRONICS (4AU), GRADED

MAJ-CORE: ENGINEERING MATHEMATICS I (4AU), GRADED

MAJ-CORE: EE2008 DATA STRUCTURES & ALGORITHMS (4AU), GRADED

GER-CORE: EE0005 INTRO TO DATA SCIENCE & AI (3AU), GRADED

GER-CORE: HY0001 ETHICS & MORAL REASONING (1AU), P/F

CORE/MPE GRADED AU CLEARED: 37/61, TOTAL AU OF GRADED COURSES: 51 /69, TOTAL AU CLEARED: 57/141

=== REVIEW PORTION ===

EE2001 - CIRCUIT ANALYSIS (Y2S1/4AU)

Lecturer:
Part 1: Prof Er Meng Joo
Part 2: Assoc Prof Justin Dauwels
Part 3: Assoc Prof Soh Cheong Boon

Tutor: Prof Wang Youyi

1. Marks and assessment component of the course

Quiz 1 (?%): ?/?
Lab 1 (?%): ?/?
Lab 2 (?%): ?/?
Home Assignment 1 (5%): ?/?
Home Assignment 2 (5%): ?/?

Finals (60%): ?

NOTE: INCOMPLETE/UNCONFIRMED ASSESSMENT RUBRIC

2. Course mechanics

EE2001 consists of weekly online lectures and a 2h weekly tutorial. Finals consists of 4 questions, each set by a different setter. There are 2 labs, each before and after recess week. 2 home assignments are given and must be submitted by a certain deadline in hardcopy. Quiz 1 was administered around end September.

3. Short Intro

Circuit Analysis introduces the basics of circuit theory in EEE. In my opinion, this course is the "core of the core" in all EEE courses. It is split into 3 parts. The first 4 weeks deals with things like basic laws e.g. Thevenin, KVL, KCL... and introduces inductor and capacitor. Part 2 introduces Laplace Transform for 2 weeks I think. The last part talks about power, though I cannot remember exactly what. I do remember that there were delta-Y etc transformation or something like that, but that was towards the end. There is also AC current content in part 3.

4. Easy parts

Personally, I don't think there were any easy parts. Some of my friends thought that the power part was easy, but I really hated power. Maybe it had to do with me burning out by the time the later weeks came. If I really had to choose, I would say that the first few weeks were manageable but that's really about it. Everything goes to shit once Dauwels starts lecturing from week 4 onwards.

5. Difficult parts

I would rank EE2001 on the harder spectrum of courses that I've taken so far. There are a lot of theories behind what they teach and they don't teach from the ground up. For example, the course goes straight in to application of Thevenin etc. I didn't feel that there were any groundwork for students to fully appreciate how the theories were derived. Also, Laplace was a complete disaster. Dauwels is bad at teaching and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND learning from YouTube or some other source.

6. Exams/ final paper

As mentioned, the final paper is a 4 question paper. Each question corresponds to a part of the lecture notes covered. Question 1 talks about circuit analysis part of the course and includes op amps. It's quite a standard question and enough practice should be done to do well in it. Question 2 is on Laplace and is set by Dauwels. Highly advised to leave it to the last as there have been instances in the past where it was set wrongly as mentioned by SCB in his revision lecture. Questions 3 and 4 are related to power if I remember correctly. I think there was one question from my batch that was related to the Homework Assignment that we were given.

7. Tips to do well

1. Homework Assignment should aim to score full or as close to full as possible. They are not easy, but get a good friend and tough it out together and things should be alright.

2. Labs should be more or less equal throughout the cohort. That being said, SCB did mention that there were A-game professors who tried to give high marks during the lab to help their students. I don't know which profs these are but they do exist so...

3. Finals should be practised a lot. Pay attention to the Homework Assignments given; there could very well be a part of the finals question or even a whole question that comes from the homework assignment. Questions 1, 3 and 4 should be mastered if you wish to score high in this course. As for Question 2, try your best.

8. Overview/ my personal (MIGHT BE BIASED) comments

I really hate circuit analysis. This course felt like a big rush because they were rushing through the whole thing. Lectures are pre-recorded and go really fast without any explanation. For example, in part 1, the lecturer would say something like "use KVL to redraw the circuit like this" without showing how to actually do it. It's really frustrating to figure out alone, especially when there are a lot of content. My tutor was shit and I didn't learn anything from him. I think I started to skip the tutorials after week 2.

Towards the end, SCB will hold a revision lecture. Apparently, a lot of people will attend this lecture as they say it's very important. Personally, I didn't feel very confident after listening, probably because I was really lost throughout the course anyway. One funny thing would be listening to SCB trash talk Justin Dauwels. For me, the revision lecture was more of an entertainment session where SCB ranted about his displeasure with Dauwels haha.

P.S. If you think EE2001 is hard, wait till you get to EE2002 Analog Electronics. :)

==

EE2004 - DIGITAL ELECTRONICS (Y2S1/4AU)

Lecturer:
Part 1: (can't remember the dude's name)
Part 2: Assoc Prof Lim Meng Hiot

Tutor: Assoc Prof Ho Duan Juat

1. Marks and assessment component of the course

Quiz (?%): ?/?
Lab 1 (?%): ?/?
Lab 2 (?%): ?/?
Lab 3 (?%): ?/?

Finals (60%): ?

NOTE: INCOMPLETE/UNCONFIRMED ASSESSMENT RUBRIC

2. Course mechanics

3. Short Intro

4. Easy parts

5. Difficult parts

6. Exams/ final paper

7. Tips to do well

8. Overview/ my personal (MIGHT BE BIASED) comments

Updates on Post-AY19/20 & some personal reflections...?

It's been a while since I've decided to write another post. Now that Y2 is over, I believe I should be writing my course reviews soon. I'll make it a point to get them up by the end of summer break as I am currently doing special term as well.

There have been a lot of changes due to the virus situation for this semester. As such, a large part of my Y2S2 review will be based off what I experienced in this pass-by-catastrophe situation and I don't think future experiences will mirror what I went through this semester. Nevertheless, I hope that the coming review will help to give an idea on what life in NTU EEE Y2 can be like.

Till then, I hope everyone stays safe!

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This semester was especially painful. Academics aside, it was a challenge to wake up everyday and attempt to carry on with daily life with a constant heavy heart. I wouldn't go as far as to say that friends were unavailable, but it was mostly a solo journey to navigate. Even till now, circuit breaker or no circuit breaker, it's still a battle everyday to look forward.

It sucks when one puts in effort and does not have it reciprocated. But the real stab is when others don't have to put in effort at all yet they get all the attention.

But who am I to whine? I've been in that position too. I don't deserve to whine about this.

Yet it still sucks.

I guess there's always a first for everything...?

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Not to say that I haven't found a way forward. I just have to stop looking back. There's still so much to do and I can't let myself be stuck in the past.

Just keep looking forward. Sooner or later, the thoughts that keep pulling you into the past will fade off, just like how it happened years ago.

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Maybe this whole pandemic saved me instead. Lol.

轮回·

该放下的就放下，别再为她牺牲，唯有这样才能有更好一生。

Post Summer 2019 Reflections

It's almost the end of summer holidays and school will be starting in a few weeks' time. I thought that now might be a good opportunity to note down what I've accomplished over the past 3 months and what are the remaining plans I have before school starts.

List of accomplishments in summer holidays 2019

1. Successfully took a GERPE-BM module to catch up with the curriculum. Didn't do as expected but at least it wasn't too badly done.

2. Successfully cleared my Unity Developer course and submitted my claim. At the moment it is still pending approval and expected date of reimbursement should be sometime after schools starts. However they have not gotten back to me on how I should verify that the name entered in my records is the one that is displayed on my NRIC. Hopefully they get back soon.

3. Finished roughly 1.5 months worth of work in Hall 5 supervising cleaners etc to pay off my GERPE-BM fees. Was also offered the opportunity to transfer to Hall 5 but decided to stay on in Crescent.

4. Finished doing up the S clan flag. The final design was slightly different from what I had in mind originally but it still looks really good nonetheless. Have to give credit to Shawn, Ronald and Brandon for helping out with the cutting/painting etc, especially Shawn for tanking a significant chunk of making the flag.

5. Finished watching Domestic Girlfriend (was a really nice drama anime LOL) and did a drawing on it. I actually want to do a few more sketches on some Dynasty Warrior characters but it remains to be seen.

6. Decided, planned and finished doing up an academic essay for submission to an ASEAN-Korea Centre academic essay competition. At first I wanted to join out of pure interest and boredom during the holiday but over time the work involved in writing the essay did get to me a little. Also, the process of writing the essay spurred me to consider pursuing a career in the Foreign Service. I've registered with MFA to send me notices of events like tea sessions.

7. I've put considerable effort in practising the piano and training up for IPPT through these few weeks. Admittedly, it is a never-ending path to practising but I would like to think that I've achieved the goal of getting back on track to prepare for the challenges of joining NTU Piano Ensemble later this year. Also, I realized that my stamina has gotten quite weak for some reason; I got really bad headaches during the last training and had to force myself to stop halfway. I think it may be due to the short time interval given to train up to the standard as before. I will consider changing my schedule accordingly.

8. I signed up for some random event to bring some students from Nanjing University around NTU and show them certain landmarks. Although it didn't last very long and I didn't make much money off of it, it was a rather unique experience to be a tour guide for a couple hours.

9. I applied and got the highest tier of bursary for the coming academic year. Won't be stating the amount down in this post but it is no small sum. Was instructed to save it for my exchange program which is what I'll do.

10. I've visited the LAN shop a few times to get my fill of PUBG before school starts. The reason I don't buy it but visit LAN is because I know I won't be able to control myself once school starts. Likewise for mobile games, I will be deleting Overhit and Clash Royale (if they are still on my phone) before the school term begins to minimize distractions.

What I could have done better:

1. I did not make any progress on practising how to write with my left hand. Usually, it would have been because I was too busy with stuff or I was too lazy to sit down and practise. Either way, I don't think there is enough time to continue so I will be shelving this goal permanently.

2. I did not get to earn the amount of money I'd set out to earn in July from relief teaching mainly because there were no jobs available for me. Most of the days I got no calls to do relief teaching; some days there were calls but they clashed with my plans for the day or they all called on the same day or they just MIA/retracted their offer. I might have to consider extending my teaching availability into term time to cover my projected expenses once school starts.

3. I have not started studying yet lol. I've been procrastinating too much. I only just got EE2006 notes around a week ago from RT lol. The plan is to start next week.

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Moving forward, the NTU-related camps will be coming up soon. Other than Crescent camp, I also joined Enitio, one of EEE's orientation camps, as a GL because Raj asked me to help out as they are short on members. Till then, I hope I can earn some money doing relief while studying for next semester. Will also be sending Jovian off for his enlistment so I'll be visiting Tekong again, this time as a civilian!

Course Review NTU EEE - EEE Y1SS AY18/19 + Updates/ External Course Reviews

The past few weeks of June have been busy for me. I was juggling a few things and truth be told I've yet to complete everything that I set out to achieve for June. Luckily though, the major stuffs are finished as I write this. I will be using the remaining time of my summer holidays to relax and prepare for the coming semester. Below is a list of what I have accomplished this May/June and reviews of the courses that I took during this period.

Also, I have decided to not update my grades from Y1S2 onward. As such, I will be leaving the previous review post on my Y1S2 mods unedited.

Do leave some comments and any questions you might have on my post or you could email me at the email address stated above. I will be happy to provide any advice I can. :)

List of things accomplished in May/June:

1. Successfully studied and passed my Unity Certified Developer (or Unity Certified Associate) Course and am awaiting the badge to submit for reimbursement.

2. Successfully completed my GERPE-BM Special Term module, awaiting results next month.

3. Applied for and am going to finish a job of being a student helper at Hall 5. I originally wanted to pen down my experiences after the thing was done but I think I shall jump the gun a bit.

4. Finished the preparations for designing the S clan flag and am now awaiting the availability of the materials to start fleshing it out.

5. Downloaded and am playing Overhit. I will be doing a mini review of the game as well.

List of things in progress:

1. Tried to practice the piano again. I tried to play 2 old songs but had to stop again due to the finals period for my BM module.

2. Tried to train for upcoming IPPT in August. I only managed to do one session in 2 months mainly due to studying for my certification and BM which left little time to commit to training.

3. Attempted to practice how to write with my left hand. I was actually quite interested to see if I could gain some proficiency using my left hand. It was supposed to be a pet project of sorts but had to take a back seat due to exams. I'll be trying again in July.

4. Draw some characters in my leisure time. I wanted to draw Alita: Battle Angel but the fire quickly faded off. I'm currently drawing Lu Lingqi from DW8 but am not very confident she might turn out well.

---

After such a busy June, I intend to let July be more chill. While the plan to study for next semester will still proceed as normal, I intend to let the extra time in July be used on completing as much of the IP stuff as possible.

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COURSE REVIEW PORTION:

Y1SS: May 2019 - June 2019

General comments on what I did well, what I could have improved on etc will be included at the end of the post. I will also update the final results when they are out.

Each course is broken up into the following parts:

1. Marks and assessment component of the course

2. Course mechanics

3. Short Intro

4. Easy parts

5. Difficult parts

6. Exams/ final paper

7. Tips to do well

8. Overview/ my personal (MIGHT BE BIASED) comments

YEAR 1 SPECIAL SEMESTER (3AU):

GER-PE: BU8601 FUNDAMENTALS OF MANAGEMENT (3AU), (GRADED)

CORE/MPE AU CLEARD: 22/61, TOTAL AU OF GRADED COURSES: 32 /69, TOTAL AU CLEARED: 37/141

=== REVIEW PORTION ===

BU8601 - Fundamentals of Management (Y1SS/3AU)

Lecturer: Dr Vijayan Munusamy, Mr Ng Sin Ain

Tutor: Dr Vijayan Munusamy, Mr Ng Sin Ain

1. Marks and assessment component of the course

Tutorial/ Class Participation (10%): A

Group Project (30%): A

Finals (60%): ?

2. Course mechanics

There are 2 lessons per week in seminar-style, 3h each comprising both lecture and tutorial. This is different from the usual semester lecture/tutorial format according to Dr Vijay. Finals is a 2h paper. Class part is self-explanatory and the Group Project includes getting into groups of 4-5 and submitting a 4500-word report by the end of the course (or by a certain lesson I can't remember).

3. Short Intro

Truth be told, I took 8601 because the other available modules for Y1SS did not appeal to me. I did not want to do marketing and Business Finance seemed to much trouble to go through. Accounting was definitely out as well since I was tired of dealing with numbers. Anyway, 8601 has a lot of what I would categorize as fluff and filler as I feel that most of what is taught is probably not applicable in the real workplace at all. I can see why a lot of people skipped out on the lessons in the normal semester. As a note, the only reason people went for class in special term was probably because we specifically paid for it. Also, this is one of the few BU courses that has finals.

4. Easy parts

I would go out on a limb to say that one does not have to study this course at all throughout the entire duration. The only important lesson to attend would be the revision lecture as it would be the most beneficial for those who are squeezed for time. The revision lecture notes should suffice for self-study for the final paper. For me, I went for most of the lessons because of the stated reason above and also because of class part (though I don't think they even knew who went because they didn't take attendance).

5. Difficult parts

I would say the difficult (or fun depending on who you get) part would be the group project. In my experience, it is ABSOLUTELY crucial to get teammates who have the same goals so that everyone puts in effort for the project. I daresay the project may very well be the differentiating factor to separate the A students from the rest hence it is important to get good teammates to achieve a good grade for the 30%.

6. Exams/ final paper

Despite saying that the exam can be studied by the revision notes alone, it should be noted that the inverse is not true i.e. what is in the notes may not come out in the exams. For me, the notes included things like Herzberg 2 Factor and Equity Theory but the final exam did not ask a single one. Also, it is important to note every single detail of the revision notes as there can be some tricky questions in the exam. I will not say what here but my advice is to thoroughly memorize the revision notes.

As for the Group Project, the grades for the 30% and tutorial participation 10% should be released before finals so for those taking in the normal semester, these could be an indicator for potential S/U.

7. Tips to do well

As mentioned, it is extremely important to get cooperative groupmates who are willing to work on the report together. Do not be afraid to ask upfront during the group formation in the first lesson whether prospective members intend to S/U the course or not. In fact, Dr Vijay encouraged us to be direct about our intentions to avoid conflicts down the road.

Memorize the notes down to the very last detail to cement the content for the exam. A significant amount of marks come directly from the content.

During the exam, read the questions first before reading the case. This helps to save time by knowing what to look out for when reading the case later on. It also allows for immediate answering of content-based questions to get warmed up for the tougher questions in the paper.

8. Overview/ my personal (MIGHT BE BIASED) comments

This course is not a hard course. I was extremely lucky to get nice groupmates who were very cooperative and helpful to each other. I'm grateful that they offered to tank the Literature Analysis when I didn't go for lesson as I was sick and they also offered to do the final report when I had to study and take my Unity exam. Of course, I made it for the group meetings and did the report introduction (which was an explicit grading criteria) and overall checking, trimming and formatting before submission (note that there are specifics for the formatting to be followed). Will never forget that we stayed up till 4.30am to rush and submit the report a few hours before the deadline LOL.

During the last lesson, the group beside us broke down because and one of the girls started scolding some of her groupmates for apparent slipshod work. It was damn awkward for us as we listened in and I had to pretend to go to the toilet because apparently things got heated in the room LOL. Also, one of their guys never showed up for class before and only went for the first and last lessons so it really drives home the point of having teammates with the same goals for the group project.

Big shoutout to Ben, KW, Xin Li and Vanessa. Thank you guys for being the most awesome groupmates I've met to date and I wish you all the best for whatever you have!

==

EXTERNAL COURSE REVIEW: UNITY CERTIFIED DEVELOPER COURSE

Unlike the regular reviews, I will not be following any format for this review as it is not an NTU course.

I took this hoping to gain an insight into how to make my own game. I took it during the winter holidays in December and was supposed to clear it by Sem 2. However, due to various factors, it had to be dragged till post-finals to finish.

This course cost me $1700 to take and can be claimed from IMDA under the CITREP scheme. It was quite a big factor in convincing me to take it up seeing as how I would essentially be paying $0 to go through. However, I did not pass the first attempt and had to spend $200 on a second attempt. Thankfully, I cleared it in the second try.

The course I took was quite rushed as the curriculum was squeezed into one month. We had 2 lessons per week and each lesson was packed with a lot of content. The entire curriculum consisted of us making our own version of a game using content provided in Unity's asset store. I got lost halfway and did not manage to get a working game. As of this writing, the unfinished files are still in my laptop somewhere and I intend to try again during the summer holidays of Y2.

Truth be told, I would that I did gain some form of insight into Unity. I roughly know (but not necessarily understand) some features and mechanics but I would not go as far as to say I grasp the full extent of what was taught. The actual knowledge and skillset required stretches far beyond whwat is taught and there are many extensive manuals that provide much more information. It would require a lot of time just to read through the literature and practice them, let alone create a working game. As mentioned, I have allocated some time to tinker around in Unity after Y2.

I also got to meet some working adults through the course and interact with them. The guy beside me was proficient in Unreal Engine and he said that Unreal was way harder to navigate than Unity. There was another guy in front of me who was from SIT-DigiPen if I remember correctly, and I think the course content was easy for him as he would have been dealing with stuff that was much more complex than Unity. It felt like I was in a class full of pros and I was one of the few noobs who had to start from scratch.

Exam-wise, I would say that it is essential to go through the courseware provided. There is a lot of content to muscle through and I had to skip some chapters due to the rush to clear everything before the exams. The exam is 100 MCQ and a score of at least 500/700 (~70%) is required to pass.

Ultimately, I feel that game development, as with any other skill, requires time to learn and master and cannot be fully achieved in such a short period of time like they advertise. It would be wise to follow up post exam to achieve maximum learning if the goal is to produce a functional game that can be exported into the App Store. I was not able to do so, unfortunately.

I would recommend going for this to gain basic exposure into game development with an established game engine. Ideally, a significant amount of time outside the classroom should be allocated to try out the various features available, hence I would strongly recommend this to NSFs who have time to kill before university and any other student with some time on their hands.

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I will be uploading my review for Overhit in the next entry as I am rushing to upload this and prepare for my Penang trip in a few minutes. Might do a review on that as well now that I think about it.

As usual, please leave comments or any questions and I will reply them as soon as I can! :)

A Little Update

I've been itching to write something but I have nothing to write. I also noticed that my blog has seen quite a surge in the number of readers, the most obviously going to my course reviews.

As a heads-up, I intend to post reviews of other non-academic related matters here. Content include reviews of external courses, trips, school events etc. I hope to enrich my blog with other content other than course reviews, though I understand that that is the reason why many readers visit in the first place. Also, I hope to get input on what my readers would like to see me blog about. Do comment on my posts and/or email me. :) Please don't spoof your contact because I find it quite offensive actually.

In the pipeline for content coming up includes reviews on my Unity certification that I'm taking soon and my Special Term GER-PE. Do keep an eye out for that.

Oh and there's this cool game that's been around for a while now. I feel really tempted to download and play Overhit and if I do, I'll try to leave a review (I'll look up how to review games) about my experience.